


My Heart is Closing Like a Fist

by Draikinator



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers Generation One
Genre: Based on a roleplay, Drama, Gen, Team 86
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 22:52:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3706739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draikinator/pseuds/Draikinator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fic based on a VERY EMOTIONAL RP. Our OCs are on a ship called The Touch and call themselves Team 86. They're drifters in a post war universe where skitch is an ex bot and airshock is an excon and lovebug is a neutral pacifist- they're scavengers. Also included is Airshock's original opener which is in first person, but the rest is in third person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Heart is Closing Like a Fist

_You are not your alt mode._

_We are not our alt mode._

_I am not my alt mode._

_The words reverberate inside of me, nearly meaningless. I am not my alt mode. I am something else. I am not a body. I am not a drone. I matter. I have meaning as an individual._

_My servos hover over the datapad. They are not shaking. I am having difficulty ending the call because the button is moving, some kind of glitch with the pad- not because I am filled with tremors._

_Decepticons are not afraid of anything._

_I am more than a simple tool made to follow orders, I reassure myself as the screen finally clicks off. I am not following these orders because I am afraid not to, I am following these orders because I trust my superiors and I believe in the Decepticon cause. I am. I am._

_I don’t see the point in obliterating a medical facility._

_My superiors say that they heal Autobots that come back to kill Decepticons, but there- something seems wrong, in attacking a hospital. They have no weapons. They’ve put up no resistance. They would surrender if we asked._

_I’ve been told not to ask._

_It’s been a long time since Old Cybertron- with each passing cycle this war is starting to feel less like the movement I had been proud to join. The oppressed clambering up to the surface, screaming and desperate and angry, demanding justice not freely given. It’s starting to feel more like “I have suffered enough. Your turn.”_

_That’s not the war I joined. I didn’t sign up for this._

_I open my comm unit and order a strike team to hit the compound with some preliminary fire, then to raid for supplies, only what you can carry. Supplies we need. Supplies MY wounded need._

_Take no prisoners._

_I feel like purging my tanks as it burns. I feel like I can smell the distinctive scents of melting steel and burning plastic, crude oil and the ozone charge of burning energon. I can’t, of course. The ship has a filtration system for the air pressure. It’s all very self contained._

_I don’t feel guilty. Decepticons don’t regret. Decepticons look toward the future, not the past._

_When the ship turns to leave, I log myself into recharge quarters for the next six cycles and slip out an airlock. I’m suddenly glad my rotors work in my root mode. I’ve never really had an opportunity to try them for anything but weaponry before- for their actual intended purpose, flying, even._

_The ship is out of sight by the time i land in the smoking wreckage of the medical outpost._

_It’s dark, and my pedes are already grimy with soot. It sticks into my joints and makes it uncomfortable to move, the ground still warm. I am stumbling, directionless, through the rubble when I pick up the faintest energy trace of something alive, too small, too faint to have detected from the air, but alive, nonetheless._

_I tear the Decepticon badge from my shoulder pauldrons before I move toward it._

* * *

Airshock scissored their servos together slowly, shuttering their optics and listening to the slow shhhk of the bladed fingertips running against eachother- the satisfactory sound of claws sharp enough to cut a wrench in half by squeezing.

“Good fight, ‘Shock!” Skitch said, clambering up Airshock’s frame and onto their shoulder, clinging to their pauldron’s with tiny orange servos, “High five, partner!”

Unwittingly, Airshock offered them their servo, and Skitch slapped theirs together before pausing with a high pitched static whine and a wince, “Oh.”

“That was unwise,” Airshock chuckled, as Skitch slid back down to the floor, shaking their cut servo with tiny resenting glances back up to Airshock.

“Speaking of injuries,” they said, standing up straight to their full diminutive height, “I’m trying to put together some comprehensive medical files for the crew so I can treat them better. I don’t even know your spark type, you know.”

Airshock’s servos clenched at their sides, fingers scraping at the vinyl paint of their palm harshly, “…Ferrum Negative,” they said after a moment’s pause, quietly.

Skitch nodded understandingly, “Gotcha. I’m Vitreous Positive. Lovebug?”

Lovebug rung their servos together softly, “Ah, I’m Ferrum Positive.”

Skitch looked at Airshock, who was avoiding eye contact in a way that looked like they thought was casual but in reality seemed very, very strained.

“…These are some pretty sensitive topics, though,” they said after a moment, “So I guess if you’d rather put this all down in private, that’s okay too.”

Lovebug smiled, “Oh, I think it’s okay! We’re a small crew- like family- we should know things like this about eachother!”

“Maybe,” Skitch said, still eyeing Airshock warily, “I won’t cross the line of mode of creation, though, I don’t need to know that.”

“I don’t mind,” Airshock said, still avoiding eye contact, “Forged.”

“Constructed,” Lovebug said softly.

“Cold,” Skitch said, “MTO, specifically. Autobot high command really fragged me over 'cuz of it, too.” They looked pointedly at Airshock and smiled, “I would have died if it hadn’t been for Airshock.”

Airshock remained silent, but Lovebug sighed.

“You were in such a bad way…”

Skitch nodded enthusiastically, “I really was. I can’t believe I survived at all- I mean, sure, the Autobots abandoned me, but the Decepticons bombed me- who bombs a medical outpost?!”

“Decepticons,” Airshock supplied.

“Hospitals are neutral,” said Lovebug, “Even for the Decepticons…”

“I’m glad you defected, Airshock,” said Skitch, and Airshock winced, “The Decepticons may have started from a good ideal but- but they went real bad, real fast.”

“I watched the war start,” said Lovebug, looking down, “From the pits. I was a mechanic, in Kaon, where it all started. It was… Maybe it was just where I was watching from but I could see, from the start, it was going to go bad.”

“It seems I’m not as observationally gifted as you,” said Airshock.

There was a beat, “Airshock,” said Skitch, “Why _did_ you defect?”

Airshock froze, every platelet on their body rippling and going flat, small against their frame and tight.

“I mean, yeah the Decepticons were real bad and all, but, like, why specifically?” They continued, “Like did something happen? Or was is a straw that broke the camel’s back type thing?”

“It was…” Airshock started, optics swimming, and they picked up one servo from their side and stared at it, closing their claws into a fist and listening to the quiet shhk of their fingers scissoring like blades, “Personal.”

“Oh,” said Skitch, looking both surprised and disappointed, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“…I have to go sharpen my rotors,” said Airshock, turning and stepping toward the door, “I’ll report back on deck for my next shift in a three cycles.”

The door slid shut behind them and they leaned against it, audials dialed all the way up, optics wide, vents flared and every spring coiled ready to burst.

“…Is Airshock okay?” Skitch said after a moment, and Airshock scrunched their optics shut and prayed to Primus they would drop it.

“I don’t know…” Said Lovebug, “they seemed really upset.

"Did I say something I shouldn’t have? Do you think it was about the mode of creation thing?”

“I don’t think so- forged mechs don’t usually react like that.”

“Maybe it was about defecting? That can be pretty sensitive. But they seemed upset before that, too…”

“You know, I wonder… Why they were near that facility they found you at, the one that got bombed, in the first place.”

“…that’s… A very good question.”

“Maybe they were trying to stop it?”

“I mean, if they weren’t there I would have died, but maybe-” there was a sharp, lingering pause, “No.”

“Do you think…?”

“Airshock would never- Airshock would-”

“The Decepticons… Were desperate.”

“…We need to talk to them.”

Airshock was running, skidding through the halls on the slick chrome, scrabbling at the walls for purchase, desperate and afraid, before they hit their goal: the ship’s one and only escape pod, sharp servos undextrous agaibst the control panel, trying to mash open the glitchy door.

It slid open, inviting, the front panel showing the welcoming depths of space, dark and freckled with white stars, beckoning them into the abyss and out of this admission they’d avoided for so long. Their servo only brushed the door lock, ready to squeeze in, when blunt servos grabbed them from behind by a winglet and wrenched them backward, off balance, and onto the floor.

“Where the pit do you think you’re going?!” Lovebug hissed, the most angry Airshock had ever heard them, and, spark pounding hard enough to blur their visual input, Airshock launched themself back at the escape pod.

“Don’t you dare-” Lovebug cried, “You need to come clean, and you need to come clean now!” They grabbed them again, by a sensitive rotor and Airshock winced- Love bug rabbed them by the collar and Airshock went slack, vents heaving.

Lovebug growled at the dead weight, but they were stronger than they looked and dragged Airshock back to the residential block and the habsuites there, towards Skitch’s voice, rising in volume with proximity.

“…wasn’t it?” Echoed quietly off of the cold, unfeeling walls, and Airshock covered their faceplate with their servos, ignoring the nicks digging into their crest and audials, hyperventilating their systems.

“I don’t blame you for what do did because- well. No. I do blame you for it. But I know you… You wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t have to… I- you did- what you did was awful, 'Shock, and I owe you my life but you- you almost took it, and-”

They rounded the corner, where Skitch was standing in front of Airshock’s habsuite door, and they spun around when Lovebug dumped Airshock in a pile in front of them, curled into themself, platelets shivering.

“Oh,” they said, startled.

“Did you think you could just run off?!” Cried Lovebug, “You’re nearly the size of a planet, Airshock! Skitch needs to talk to you and you can’t even be there for that!”

They flinched violently, uncurling, clinging to their arms, still shaking, leaning down from their enormous height to meet Skitch’s optic.

“So… So it was you, then. You destroyed the outpost. You killed all those people. You tried to kill me.”

“I- it- it was-”

“I don’t blame you,” Skitch said softly, “Not anymore. Not really.”

“You should,” Airshock whispered, strained, tightening their grip on their arms against their chest so hard their servos cut into the paint, leaving tiny gouges.

“I would have,” they said, staring up at Airshock behind their dimmed green visor, “If I’d known that before I knew you.”

Airshock shivered and took a jittering step back.

“And I know- you wouldn’t have done something so awful if you didn’t have to-” Skitch said, voice brightening the slightest bit, “you… You had to… Right?”

Airshock paused, tanks turning, “I thought- at the time, I thought, I thought that pulling you out of the rubble and keeping you alive might help make up for what I did, but I- nothing does. It doesn’t go away. It doesn’t ever go away, Skitch.

"I don’t know. I didn’t… I didn’t even… Try to leave. Until it was over.”

“You… I never asked about your Decepticon days,” Skitch said, starting to quiver, servos balled into fists at their sides, “Because I figured that was your business, and you would tell me if you thought I needed to know. But this- this is my business, Airshock! I needed to know that!” They stepped forward, screaming now, and Airshock backed against the wall, optics scrunched shut, dentae grit, shaking, “I would have hated you! And I would have been justified to do so and you fragging know it!”

Airshock exploded.

“I KNOW!” They screamed, falling forward onto their knees and sinking their claws into the deck eith enough force to puncture the metal, cleanly, shoulder pauldrons heaving, “I know I know I know I know!! I didn’t tell you because I’m weak, and a coward!! I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d hate me, and you should! I fragged up, I fragged up and I can’t ever fix it and you were the first good thing that ever- I break everything I touch,” Airshock sobbed, picking up one servo from the floor, scissoring their fingers together with a long shhk, “I thought- I thought I could keep from hurting you if I didn’t- I thought if I pretended it never happened it would be okay- you wouldn’t- I don’t know what to do without-”

Lovebug looked taken aback at the violence inflicted on the floor, back away, tense and hesitant, “Maybe you two should move somewhere more private to talk.”

Airshock’s sobbing stopped abruptly and their voice came quiet and raspy with static, “There’s nothing to talk about. I knew this day would come. We make landing tomorrow. When we hit planetside, I’ll get off the ship, and you’ll never hear from me again. I promise.”

“Airshock…” Skitch said, “If you weren’t a good person, you wouldn’t feel bad. You don’t have to leave. You don’t have to run away.”

“Like pit you’re going anywhere!” Lovebug yelled, face scrunched up with hurt, “You’re a part of this crew! No matter how fragged up what you did was, you’re still family, and we’ll work through it together!”

“I can’t- I’d be lying if I said I forgive you, just like that. You tried to kill me. But if it means losing my battle buddy- if it means losing my best friend, I- Airshock, I don’t want you to go. We can work through this,” Skitch said, stepping forward and toward Airshock, who was leaning on their servos, head bowed.

There was a long, tense beat, before Airshock’s chest plates slid apart, casting a familiar green glow upon the twisted metal of the floor, and both Skitch and Lovebug’s optics widened.

“…There’s something else I should tell you... About why I’m on Tarn’s list,” Airshock whispered.

**Author's Note:**

> THE BEST PART OF THIS IS THAT WE USED A RANDOM GENERATOR TO GET SPARK TYPES AND I SAID FERRUM NEGATIVE BEFORE I ROLLED AND THEN I ROLLED POINT ONE PERCENTER AND WE ALL LOST IT AND DECIDED TO JUST ROLL WITH IT ANYWAY


End file.
